Crowley's Bones
by Sparkle Itamashii
Summary: The story of Crowley and his hellhound.


Title: Crowley's Bones

Author: Sparkle Itamashii

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Crowley's Bones

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The thing is, Crowley remembered - was one of the few who did- his time as a human. He remembered the family he had, and the house where he lived, and the pub down the street. He didn't care for any of it, didn't really care for any of it when he was alive either, but he did remember it. He remembered always feeling held back, like there should have been more for him. More wealth, more power, more respect.

Perhaps what hurt worst about becoming a demon was that there wasn't any more of any of that than there had been when he was a human. When the shackles clanked dully against the rack, no longer able to hold onto the roiling mist of his true form, he'd been at the very, very bottom of the totem pole. Those first few hours, still not fully in control of his new faculties, his new powers, he'd very nearly become fodder for one of the bottom-feeding denizens of Hell. He'd been hunted, he'd been caught and flayed and nearly consumed by the more ancient forces that prowled Hell's smoldering belly. For a time, Crowley had suspected Hell was no better for demons than it was for the humans they'd once been.

Then he had discovered that he didn't _have_ to be a bottom-dwelling worm. In a fit of gloating pride, another _stronger_ demon had boasted about the ranks, about coming to power, and Crowley realized he could get out. This circle of Hell was not the only one, and all he had to do to get elsewhere was be utterly ruthless.

If Crowley knew anything, it was how to be ruthless.

Tearing apart the demon that had imparted the knowledge to him was a good start.

After that Crowley scoured the depths for a way out, for a way through the ranks. The key to everything was souls, fresh human souls, and there was only one way to get to those; take up at a crossroads, make deals with the sort of greedy, desperate human Crowley used to be. The problem, he found, was in the collection.

He needed a hound, the sort spawned in hellfire and brimstone proper. There were demons who kept the sort of hellhounds Crowley needed, demons who would trade pups to potential crossroads demons in exchange for souls. As Crowley didn't have souls, they wouldn't trade with him, chased him off with gnashing teeth and snarls.

It was fine. Crowley knew that there were wild hellhounds roaming the Pit, and he knew that they were bigger and tougher and meaner than the ones the demons had tamed. All he had to do was find one, a young one, and take it out of the wild.

Unfortunately this was easier in words than it was in practice. Crowley very swiftly discovered that hellhounds were capable of shredding more than humans; they could also damage his true form. He discovered that they did not appreciate demons getting too close to them, and that they were very badly tempered. Crowley scrambled away from no few encounters with injuries that took days, even weeks to heal.

It was blind luck that sent him stumbling into the den of a mother hound, after almost a year of skulking around the wilds of Hell.

The pups were asleep when he collapsed inside, and that their mother was absent for a short time was his only saving grace. He'd been in a fight with a pair of hounds not far away, and they had left him with injuries that made him sluggish and sticky, and he wasn't sure he could even have fought off the pups if they'd been awake.

As it was, they sensed him there, and they snapped and growled, tiny glowing eyes slitted as they glared… all except for one. Off to the side, curled up with eyes not even opened yet, lay one little pile of bones and hellfire. Before he could think too much about it, before he could be torn to shreds by freaking _puppies_, Crowley scooped up the runt - who protested with a completely undignified squeal rather than a proper scream - and made a run for it.

It was quite a ways back out of the wilds; Crowley found himself surprised at how far he'd wandered. The entire journey he clutched the small pile of burning bones to his chest, feeling the tiny wriggling motions, hearing the high-pitched complaints that would someday be chilling, soulful screams and howls. They would, Crowley told himself as the thing chewed toothlessly on his essence. This seemingly pitiful creature would become Hell's most fearsome monster.

It didn't, not for a while anyway. It was a pile of bones, if even that, flickers of hellfire licking at the edges and two bright blue eyes when it finally opened them. It was tiny in his hands, and it nibbled on his fingers and it growled at him almost every waking moment, but it was his ticket out of the Pit and he wasn't letting it go for anything.

"Look at you," he would tell it as it gnawed with determination upon a shackle Crowley had stolen from below Alastair's rack. "You're nothing but bones, you little spitfire. Just bones and attitude."

The name stuck.

Crowley didn't really have anywhere to take Bones, didn't have a home in the Pit. He had found a space no one frequented, and it was there that he returned when he had nowhere else to go. It was there that he brought Bones, where he sat down and tried to recall anything he knew about hellhounds, which was very little after all. What he did remember was the demons who kept hellhounds telling him he'd never Bond with one anyway, and that meant there was some sort of bond to not have.

It took some amount of searching and an amount of begging and wheedling that Crowley would never be proud of or admit to, but he discovered the trading of essences which had to occur to bond a hellhound to a master. It was easy, if not painless; they traded a rib for a rib and he coalesced a portion of himself to feed the pup, then drew off some of the pup's hellfire to replace it. He couldn't have guessed at the time how important the exchange would be.

The moment the hellfire integrated into his essence, there was a _change_ in Crowley. He became aware of Bones in a way he would never be able to describe to anyone that hadn't experienced it; he was in control of the pup, felt that he could tell it whatever he wanted it to do, know that he would be obeyed. Perhaps even more striking than the internal change was the external change- the moment his cloudy, ethereal substance morphed from pitch black to deep scarlet, marking him as a bound demon. The bond, he would later find, was what allowed him to siphon the souls his hound collected.

Over the next few years, Crowley lived in his own little bubble of training Bones and learning what he could and could not do with the little pup. Of course, Bones did not stay a little pup for long. Like its wild family, Bones grew larger and lankier and tougher than any of the others they came across. A strange, congealing sort of flesh filled in the spaces between its bones, burning off in blue and green flame, counterpoint to the glowing embers of its eyes. It heeded Crowley - and only Crowley - and they became an unstoppable team.

Crowley would never forget the first time they answered the call of a desperate crossroads deal-maker. Usually a crossroads demon would not bring the hound to the deal; it was considered poor manners, if the human found out. Crowley had never cared much for rules, but he did tell Bones to sit quietly and watch. That was the first time Bones ever caught the scent of a human, and Crowley could feel that Bones would never forget the scent. He knew that no matter where this human went, Bones would be able to find her. In ten years, when the deal came due, he knew that Bones would bring him her soul.

The day Bones returned from its first soul-fetch was one of Crowley's proudest moments of his existence.

It went for years and years like that. Crowley never had to work for someone else, like some of the other crossroads demons. They had debts to pay, debts incurred from obtaining the hellhounds they used to collect their dues. Instead, Crowley saved the souls for himself, drew upon their power, moved up through the ranks until he had other demons doing _his_ bidding.

The power was sweet, and only getting sweeter, right up until the day Lillith descended upon his domain. She coiled about him, all white smoke and smooth tones and told him she needed a _favor_. She had a deal to collect on, a very important deal, and unfortunately her _personal assisstant_ was _indisposed._ Shivers crawled up Crowley's spine at the way she said the last word.

But not even Bones was brave enough to snap at her when she curled a finger under his chin and told Crowley she just needed to borrow the mutt for a few hours. "Winchester" was the name that rolled off of her tongue. The Righteous Man. The child whose fall would mean the rise of their Lord, Lucifer, and Crowley knew the sort of recognition he could gain by having owned the hound who brought that key into Hell.

Lillith had walked away with his hellhound at her heel that evening, but Crowley was nothing if not crafty. Bones returned alone the next morning, the pale-blue soul of the Winchester kid shining bright behind his ribs. Lillith had stormed in, furious, but Crowley had tipped up his chin and asked her "What's in it for me, love?"

The day Lillith had crowned Crowley the King of the Crossroads demons ranked only slightly higher than Bones' first soul on Crowley's _proudest moments_ list.

When the opportunity presented itself so _beautifully_ for Crowley to help a despicable pair of human hunters take out Lucifer, Crowley jumped. With Lucifer and Lillith both out of the picture, there were precious few others capable of running Hell, and none of them would challenge him if he laid claim to it first. So he'd handed over the Colt to the Winchesters, and later he'd asked Bones to protect all of them, and in the end, it had all worked.

Crowley, King of Hell. It had a nice ring to it.

With all of Hell to be running, Crowley began to make fewer deals. He didn't have time to go scurrying about to crossroads to grant this or that piddly human their request in exchange for a soul. Bones didn't seem to mind; it continued to collect on the deals Crowley had made in the past, faithfully bringing them to Crowley on an almost nightly basis.

Perhaps the most stunning realization of all came when a certain wayward angel burned what remained of Crowley's human past. It had hurt, more than anything he'd ever felt, more than the torture he'd endured into demonhood. But it hadn't killed him, and when he woke up to the sting of hellfire licking at his cheek from Bones' tongue, Crowley realized that though the angel had burned Crowley's bones, he hadn't burned _all_ of them. The exchange he'd made with the hound as a pup had saved his life, hidden a portion of himself away from harm. Bones had protected him in ways he could never have fathomed, and Crowley kept him closer than ever after that.

So it was with some amount of trepidation that Crowley noticed he was alone one evening. He stretched out to feel where Bones had gone, and found it prowling the outskirts of a horse ranch. The bond was sluggish at best, meaning Bones was far from him, but Crowley wasn't worried. There was an entire family of souls to collect there; he remembered that night quite fondly. He'd meant to make just one deal, and had left with a full hand of promised souls. Bones was going to have fun.

Still, it shouldn't have taken as long as it did, and Crowley felt uneasy when he found he couldn't feel Bones' essence any longer. This had happened several times over the years, sometimes due to distance, sometimes due to interference. Bones had always come home, however, and so Crowley let it be, and retired for the evening. It was only a few piddly, squabbling humans after all.

When there was still no Bones curled up in his office by the next Earth morning, Crowley's concern took root. He was irritable, moreso than usual, and it took the suggestion of one brave (if sacrificial) demon underling to suggest that perhaps he should go see for himself where Bones had gone. Crowley left the bloody mess in his office for someone else to clean, and zipped topside. He was the King of Hell, he told himself, and but it had been largely because of Bones, and if Crowley owed anyone anything - and he didn't - it was that pup.

The ranch, when he arrived, was in turmoil. Crowley didn't show himself, for which he was glad a few moments later when he recognized one of his contract holders still alive and kicking. Ellie, he dredged up from his memory, and he could see his mark upon her, and he could hear the police talking about a wolf, and if Bones had been here, why was Ellie still walking?

A cold feeling had settled in his gut, and he knew what it was, but he denied it. Bones was a _hellhound_. Bones had been born of the wilds of Hell, made of hellfire and brimstone and spite. It was bigger and meaner than any of the others, and it belonged body and soul to the very King of Hell.

He denied it right up until he followed Ellie through the barn doors and his clean dress shoes pressed into the pool of black blood spread beneath Bones. He denied it until he was on his knees beside the pile of charred bones, cold and dark without the hellfire that had burned around them since the pup's birth. He denied it until his fingers stroked down Bones' sharp jaw in his lap, and fury, chill and sharp, leapt into his throat.

He didn't have to hear the names to know who'd done it. He didn't have to hear the names when he pinned Ellie to the wall and demanded to know if they'd been here, but he made her say it.

"Winchester."

He didn't know how he was going to do it yet, as he gathered Bones' body into his arms to return them both to Hell, but he knew he was going to make them pay.


End file.
